THE CHINESE BOYCOTT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13726, 16 April 1908, Page 4

THE CHINESE BOYCOTT.

The action of the Chinese in boycotting Japanese trade and shipping in retaliation for the dictatorial manner in which Japan demanded and obtained " redress for the seizure in Chinese waters of a Japanese vessel carrying arms and ammunition 1,0 revolutionists may not

improbably mark, a new epoch in the relations of the two great Asiatic nations. That, this, boycott is paralysing Japanese commerce with China and the Chinese* appears certain. Japanese, merchants / find themselves without Chinese customers and .Japanese ships without Chinese passengers or cargo, while Japanese commercial paper cannot, be negotiated through / Chinese bank.-* and firms. It has been stated that the boycott will be maintained until the loss of many millions of pounds sterling has been inflicted. This threat would seem very much like gasconade if made in a European State, where such a peculiarly Chinese method of injuring an enemy would not be considered seriously by practical commercial men ; but China has socially evolved along lines in which private and secret organisations are relied; upon for protection and to secure justice, and the boycott has thus become a traditional and habitual practice. It was exerted with much success against the Americans in retaliation for the refusal to admit Chinese merchants and students into the United States ; and is being directed against Japan with a vigour which shows not only how deeply the Chinese mind has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which all nations have treated the Flowery Kingdom, but how eloso and intimate are the corporate relations existing between the Chinese in all parts of the world. For the boycott against. Japan is as complete in Sydney and San Francisco as in Canton : the effect being lest; only because the Chinese are commercially less in evidence. The unknown factor in the problem, however, is what the Japanese will do. It would be exceedingly hard foir the Government of the Mikado to acknowledge, by yielding and apologising, that it had been beaten by the Chinese strategy ; yet it is hardly conceivable that with its desperate desire for foreign trade—inspired by the need for foreign gold to maintain its place among the nations—Japan will look calmly on while its main trade is shattered. For the exploitation of the Chinese market has been the great goal of the Japanese manufacturers and merchants. The difficulty of dealing with a boycott upon even semicivilised lines is obvious, however. If China were made nationally responsible for the methods of her merchants it might be possible by force to exact an indemnity stiflicient. to cover Japanese losses. But it is China's trade winch Japan wants, and not all the force in the world can make a people buy Japanese goods if they are determined not to buy them ; while European nations would certainly not assent to the imposition of a prohibitive duty against them in China merely to give Japanese goods an unavoidable preference. .Nor ia it, so certain that Japan would overcome Chinese resistance as easily as she did fourteen years ago. The ultimate outcome of the whole affair will most likely be that China will henceforward be treated with an increased amount of respect, and that captured gun-runners will henceforward find very little countenance in any Pekin Legation.